I want us to focus on creating the life, the community, the world we want to live in,

and it really starts with being intentional and having vision.

So I want to talk about Hannah Elias, one of the six African Americans who survived slavery and became a millionaire.

And her story's kind of tragic a little bit, but what she was was a woman with intense

vision. So after she was demonized and vilified and accused of all kinds of things, because that's

what will happen. And Shamari Wills says that that's what all of these millionaires had in common.

Not only did they have intestinal fortitude, but they also were heavily demonized and heavily

criticized. And some of them, all of them actually had threats on their lives. Because how dare

you, how dare you have the audacity to do better than me? How dare you have the

audacity to have butlers and maids and beautiful homes and cars and have all of the money

that you could possibly need? How dare you, Negro, out of slavery, do all of this when I'm eating

boiled potatoes every night. Do better. Should be the mess. That should be the hashtag, right?

So after she fled her beautiful mansion overlooking Central Park among the white people,

and that was like a goal, you know, she, but she was like trapped in her home because she

didn't want anyone to see her.

She just wanted to have the wealth living among them, but didn't want them to know.

So when they found out, hey, we have a negress living next to us.

She set her sights on Harlem.

Now, black people had started moving into Lower Harlem after they opened a train station on 125th Street in 1905.

1905, so of course, white flight being what it is, they started drawing a line at 130th Street,

which serves as the border between integrated and non-integrated Harlem. So Black Harlem was 130th

street and below. A White Harlem was 130th Street and above. So in 1909, White Harlemites lobbied the New York Public Library on 135th Street to ban blacks from using the facility.

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